Hidden in Ink
by J.T.'s A.X
Summary: Jules can't figure out why Ara's changed so much since her trip to Spain over the summer and confronts her about a tattoo she insisted on getting shortly after she came back home. Just a simple teaser for a story I hope to get up soon. Oneshot.


A/N: This is a teaser for a story that I want to get up hopefully soon. Takes place as part of an epilogue. Tell me if you're interested in the story behind this story. :)

o-o-o-O-o-o-o

The smell of disinfectant. An uncomfortable chair. A sore ass from several hours of sitting without moving.

Argh!

When it was all over, the tattoo artist gave her strict instructions for immediate care before shooing her out of the chair and yelling for the next person: a hulking biker who blocked out the doorway, covered in piercings and multiple tattoos, with dreadlocks, beard, and heavy scowl.

With a startled squeak, she scrambled out of the room and into the lobby. She found her best friend fidgeting as she waited impatiently, texting furiously to the beat of some unheard rhythm from her earbuds.

Straightening her tank top and pocketing her own phone, she snuck up behind Jules and, ignoring the other people in the waiting room, yanked out the other girl's headphones and began to sing in an exaggerated off-key,

"_Solo somos tu! Y yo!"_

She hauled the startled teen to her feet and began pushing her shoulders around so that she precariously swayed to the beat.

"_Bailando asi! Pidiendo mas y mas calor-"_

"_Nin-TEHN-doe kay soy pah-rah teeee!"_ Jules cut in in a fake screechy voice. The pair burst into giggles on their way out the door.

"It's SEEN-tiendo! Not NIN-tendo, loca!"

"I don't CAAAAAARRE! Oh, but what does it look like!? What does it look like!? **What does it look like!? PLEASE **let me see!"

Jules strained to get at her friend's bandaged shoulder but the persistent eighteen-year-old insisted on keeping her away.

"What the hell! Cell, you've been keeping this a secret since forever! I don't know why you even wanted to a damn tattoo in the first place, but you've been obsessing since you got back! Seriously! You'd _**better**_ tell me what it is! Or I'll-"

"Hijack my car and leave me stranded here?" She smirked, "uh-huh, yeah! Good luck with that cuz' _**I**_ have the keys!" She dangled them in Jules face for added emphasis.

Julianna pouted as they neared the car but she knew her friend well enough to know that Ara would tell her when she was good and ready, as annoying as it would be waiting for her. It'd been at least a year since that girl'd first talked about getting a tattoo, but it wasn't until about a month ago, at the end of summer, that she earnestly-and frantically-began saving to get one.

"Here, you drive. My arm's sore." She carelessly tossed the keys at her friend.

Without a word, aa glaring Jules scrambled to catch them and the two headed to the campus to get lunch.

o-o-o-O-o-o-o

"What'll your Tía say?"

A few hours later, in the haven of their dorm room, after an 'almuerzo' of stereotypically Mexican rice and bean enchiladas with plenty of homemade salsa, the two lounged on the twin couch eating double fudge chocolate ice cream with fresh cherries. Which was also a new favorite of Ara's. Before, whenever she'd been offered, she'd declined, always insisting she never liked them; NOW, they'd become a staple of her diet.

It was weird... how much she'd seemed to have changed since her trip to Spain. There were times when she seemed to be staring off into space... close to tears, or with a tiny sad smile on her face. But the moments were so far apart and so short, Jules often thought she'd imagined them. And when she confronted the Mexican Spaniard about it, Ara always brushed her off with some believably innocent excuse... Which was getting frustrating...

Aside from that, although Jules had constantly asked for details about her long-anticipated "Spain-trip", Ara had been entirely too vague and general for her liking. As students at the Academy, the intuitive Jules was pretty sure thi girl was hiding something. And it bothered her that her friend of 18 years didn't seem to trust her enough to tell her.

"Honestly, I don't know what to tell her. So I actually think I won't say anything about it for awhile..."

Ara's speculative answer snapped Jules out of her thoughts, but the girl was too tactful to show it to her friend's scrutinizing stare. Still, the Spanish-by-birth Mexican seemed to see right through her facade.

And apparently didn't like what she saw because she rose abruptly, coldly, as if offended and went to the bathroom, leaving Jules reeling at the sudden change.

o-o-o-O-o-o-o

Sometime later, she called Jules to the bathroom. Cautiously, her friend came over to find that the bandage around Ara's upper arm was gone. Excitedly, she rushed over for a proper look.

The image was a strange symbol of some sort, something she'd never seen before in all the time she'd spent obsessing over cyphers and other languages. It seemed to be a pair of wings, curved in a way that if the tips were to meet at the top, it would have formed a circle. Bisecting them was a wicked-looking spike that shot from the bottom center all the way up to the top to where the wings would have joined; just a bit below the exact middle of the circle, along the spike, was a six-pointed star. Under this were-what looked like-messages of sorts. The script was of one was in an elaborate font and only one was unfamiliar because Juliana Kopenhagen knew enough to identify the first and last letters.

"So, I see an 'O' and a 'K', but what's the squiggle in the middle? 'O-kay-squiggle,' or rather, 'oh-squiggle-kay'... And then what are the symbols underneath? The trapezoid, rectangle, and backwards 'k' without the top branch?"

She raised an eyebrow at her friend. Ara merely shrugged as if it was far too trivial to explain, instead focusing on her reflection as she flexed her toned arm in appreciation of the new art under firm muscles. Jules went back to ogling the tattoo but still kept a furtive eye on her friend who suddenly seemed a hundred miles away, her eyes on the verge of brimming over with tears.

"Where are you?" she whispered tentatively, concerened but knowing not the push.

To her eternal astonishment, her friend responded, low and husky, voice filled with longing and regret.

"In a galaxy far, far away…"

o-o-o-O-o-o-o

A/N: well, that's it for now folks, but hopefully I'll get this one up soon. Thanks for reading! Questions and comments are welcome.

A/N2: Just some housekeeping. I cleaned up the mistakes and tried to elaborate more in some places. What do you think? It is too vague or do you have at least an inkling of an idea what she could be refering to?


End file.
